LINCOLN, NEB. ? After being inundated with suggestions from Cornhusker fans, Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson Monday announced several improvements to Memorial Stadium.

When fans arrive for the Cornhuskers’ football season opener Aug. 30 against Oklahoma State, they’ll be greeted by signs over the stadium gates welcoming “the greatest fans in college football.”

Other improvements include capping the wooden bleachers in the end zones with plastic and updating some of the women’s restrooms.

Fans also will be given greater access to the football program’s trophy display cases.

Shortly after he was hired in January, Pederson mailed surveys to football season-ticket holders asking for their suggestions for improvements.

“When you ask Nebraska fans for their thoughts and opinions, you get them,” Pederson said, holding folders and notebooks filled with about 2,000 responses.

Pederson said the 80-year-old stadium is in “good to very good” condition, but the biggest complaint from fans concerned the end-zone seats.

After watching a spring practice from those seats, Pederson said he could understand why.

Pederson, holding up a chunk of some of the weathered wood, said stadium crews had placed plastic capping over the end-zone bleachers, which account for 40,000 seats. The project cost $200,000, he said.

The next major project, Pederson said, is waterproofing the east stadium balcony. That work, which will cost $1.3 million, will begin after football season.